Last week in the North Carolina General Assembly, budget meetings continued May 9 and 10, the House Select Committee on School Safety approved its report of recommendations, and most House and Senate members survived their primary elections.

What sport is this, you say? It’s for the Amazon Cup, the 50,000 job, multi-billion dollar investment for the cyber retail giant’s second headquarters. North Carolina has a player in the competition, the Triangle region, and now Amazon analysts are making visits to the final 20 before announcing a winner sometime this year.

eliminate tenure for public school teachers and moved teachers instead to a system of one-, two- or four-year contracts, to be in effect by the 2017-18 school year. At the same time, the legislature left it up to the state’s school districts to figure out how to implement the Teacher Employment Law.

Having tenure meant teachers had the right to appeal changes in their employment status. Under the law, all teachers with tenure are to lose it as of July 1 this year.